7. He fall drink of the brook in the way: And therefore fhall he lift up the head. Water is a metaphor for grace in fcripture-language: And the holy Spirit, and his graces, are often represented by the fymbol of water. Thou shalt be like a watered garden*. Their foul fhall be as a watered garden. I will pour out my Spirit. I will pour water upon him that is thirfty: and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my fpirit upon thy feed; and my blessing upon thine offspring §. But which is yet more to the point, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I fhall give him, shall never thirft; that is, the water of the spirit. He that believeth on me, out of his belly fhall flow rivers of living water-This fpake he of the Spirit **. And to mention no more, we § Ifa. xliv. 3. John iv. 14. **John vii. 38, 39. Comp. Ifâ. xii. 3. are are faid to be baptized with the Holy Ghoft, as with water. Therefore I understand his drinking of the brook in the way, of his imbibing the graces of the holy Spirit, in the course of his ministry: Which having fuccefsfully performed, he fhall lift up his head, and be exalted to his royal and priestly dignity in the heavens. This I take to be the plain meaning of this pfalm, which hath fo much perplexed interpreters; and particularly of that part of it, which relates to the prefent fubject. This notion concerning the lowering of the mountains, and the raifing of the vallies, grounded upon the literal sense of the foregoing prophecies, will be allowed to receive fome countenance from certain antient traditions, which must have taken their rife from these prophecies; or from fome original of antient date. There is a paffage in the book of Baruch, which may be looked upon as an early comment on the prophecy of Isaiah. God God hath appointed that every high hill, and banks of long continuance, fhould be caft down, and valleys filled up, to make even the ground, that Ifrael may go fafely in the glory of God. The words are plain, and the notion would not have been advanced without fome grounds for it. The Jews expect the fulfilling of this promife, in its literal fenfe, when they return from their difperfion, to facilitate their paffage into the holy land. This is agreeable to an idle tradition which they have, grounded upon the fame general notion, That, among other inftances of an extraordinary providence, a cloud went before their forefathers in the wilderness, three days journey, to level the hills, and fill up the valleys before them †. There is a paffage of the fame import in the Sibylline oracles, which fignifies, that, previous to the diffolution of all *Baruch v. 7. + Targum in Canticles ii. 6. things, things, and the last judgment, the mountains shall be thrown down, and the valleys raised, and both be reduced to an equality. The words, as preferved by St. Auftin, are Dejiciet colles, valles extollet ab imo; Non erit in rebus hominum fublime, vel altum. Jam æquantur campis montes, et cærula ponti. Omnia ceffabunt; tellus confracta peribit *. This oracle is better preferved in the Greek by Eufebius, of which the Latin is a bad tranflation; as St. Auftin in a manner acknowledges +: Ύψωσει δε φαραγίας, ολει δ' ὑψωμα]α ξενων. The fecond verfe may be taken both in the literal and moral fenfe-That there *Aug. de civ. Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 23. † In his Latinis verfibus de Graeco utcunque tranflatis. Eufeb. in Aoly Bach. cap. xviii. 2 fhall shall be no wearifome heights, nor dangerous precipices: Or, that there shall be fuch an equality among men, as will deftroy all invidious diftinctions of rank and fortune; and all fuch fuperiorities of place and power, as will be oppreffive, or injurious, to those of inferior degree, and condition. The antient heathens had another tradition of the like import, whether borrowed in part from the foregoing prophecy of Ifaiah; or however else they came by it," That the time would come, decreed by fate, when the earth would be reduced to an even plain, and mankind should all live under one happy polity; and be all of one language,” Επεισι δε χρονα ειμαρμεν, εν ώ της γης επιπεδες και ὁμαλης γενομένης, ένα βιον, και μιαν πολίειαν ανθρωπων μακαριων, και ομοΓλωσσων απαντων YEVEα. Plut. de Ifide. The certainty of the divine purpose is strongly expreffed in the ftile of the hea then mythology; in which the time pre |